Life's like that! And i don't like it!!

Uno, Due, Tre, Quattro, Cinque, Sei, Sette, Otto, Nove, Dieci. Yeah, thats how long an average "week" is for me these days!! You know, semester five, so far atleast(not that its going to get any better), has most definitely been the worst semester of my life. Everything about it makes me really worked up and unhappy. It just ruins your daily life. The "good times" seem to have been sucked out with a force which I presume has reached the 200,000 Newton mark already. I used to love life the way it was, right up till 9:30 a.m. on July 21st, 2008. But from that point on, my life, and all those small pleasures and happiness associated with it, have been going down the drains. Deeper and deeper with every passing day. Another week of this, and it's going to go to "The Point Of No Return".

So what is it about this semester that makes me feel so sick? Well, to be honest, its EVERYTHING. In fact, engineering on the whole has made me sick sick sick!!
Here's a glimpse of my daily routine:
Wake up at 7 a.m., get ready by 7:45(cos it takes me another 30 minutes to get my hair to stand up tall, just so that my friends don't freak out when i go to college with hair sprewn all over my forehead. It happened once and it wasn't pretty(neither the hairstlye, nor the reception that was bestowed upon me.) The punctual freak that i am, i'm all ready and set to go at precisely 8:14 a.m., so that a friend of mine(who i go to college with) can pick me up a minute later so that we can reach in time for the 8:30 lecture. But wait, did i tell you that this "friend" of mine gets up at the "royal" time of 7:45(or 8 sometimes), and has a "royal" breakfast every morning, and that he takes his own sweet "royal" time to have it, and that i have to wait at the gate of my building for "His Laziness" for an eternity, as if i'm the watchman. I mean, how long does it take to get your "royal" ass out of your house and into an autorickshaw for pete's sake? There, my day starts off like that more often that not, and if you didn't realize already, i hate non-punctual people! Sorry for the cheeky little dig, Saurajit, but everyone needs to know about the Royal One. :P

Okay, so i reach college and the moment i reach the gate, i'm greeted by the ever-pleasant watchmen of our college who literally demand to see your ID card with the ferocity and the forcefulness reminiscent of an FBI or a Secret Service agent standing at the gate of the White House. I happened to argue with one of them once and he told me they were just checking to make sure an unknown person didn't sneak a bomb inside college and blew it up. Oh yes. Either they can't differentiate between students and terrorists, or they happen to believe that engineering students hate the field so much that they'd want to blow up that darned institution which gave them their education, just to "get back" at it. Give me a break, would'ya?

With the arrival of the First Years, there is an unbelievable rush to get into the lift and up to your respective departments. There are only two lifts, and there are scores of students standing impatiently outside, waiting for the lifts to make their daily soujourns right up till the 6th floor and back. Over and over again. And when it just seems like you could get onto one of the lifts, "BeEeEeEeP!!". Thats the "overweight" buzzer. And before you know it, you're shoved out of the lift like an outcast and asked to wait another 5-10 minutes for your chance. I mean, what the hell?

As far as the lectures are concerned, well, they're obviously anything but amusing! The teachers seem to try their best to teach, but more often than not, everything they teach goes atleast a mile above the head. Or a mile beyond the realms of understanding, if we're in the horizontal frame of reference. Semester Five has been the worst when it comes to lectures. You could largely blame it on the subjects, some of which can absolutely bore you to death. The teachers give it a decent go and try to put something into our brains, but the sheer bout of sleep and laziness you experience during all of this is unbelievable!! I have actually mastered the art of day-dreaming. If the teacher looks at you, you look him back in the eye and just nod as if you've understood every damned word of what he's just said. If he looks at you another time, you could give him the "confused" look and act as if you didn't understand and then start to act as if you're going to argue with him over something he said that you thought was wrong. There, he'll never ask you another question! And you can safely get back to your dreaming. The list of things i dream about is pretty exhaustive, but food and football top the list.

The lunch-break is(was, actually) probably the best part of the day, where all of us friends sit together and have lunch, share jokes and talk about anything and everything. But that was until last semester. These days, with so much on the plate, no one hangs around long enough. Once someone's lunch is over, that person gets out of there and goes to do some important "work". Okay, that work is basically writing assigments or journals, or at times hanging out in the staff-room trying to act smart, or doing projects in the lab, or studying in the library, or blah blah bloody blah!!!! I simply HATE it. I mean, atleast spare one hour a day with your friends. Just talk and have a good laugh! Everything else can wait!! One Hour!! Is it so difficult to do that? And another reason for all this anguish is that when one person goes, a dozen others follow, and suddenly, the whole darned place is empty. No regards whatsoever for people who're still eating. No regards whatsoever!! Well, i understand that with so much to do, there's little time to waste. But an hour a day isn't too much. I used to love it before. But this semester, things have become so awful! This is college life, and its never going to come back. In a couple of years, there's going to be nothing like this ever again. Everyone is going to bifurcate into different fields, and never will you have 20 odd friends sitting together in the same room having a good laugh, joking around, having fun, pulling peoples' legs and so on and so forth. I can almost feel the pain and disappointment that comes with the absence of all this starting to crawl in. I'd write a thesis on my anguish, but its going to fall on deaf ears. Whats the use? My friends aren't to really be blamed for this actually. Its the rotten semester unraveling its dirty form.

The rest of the day is pretty much the same. My eyes have become sore at the sight of journal paper travelling from one hand to the other. You look on one side and there's the Geek Gang™ immersed in their text books or maybe talking about the 8086 Microprocessor or how useful Java can be, or some nonsense like that. On the other side, you can see the Overenthusiastic Ones™ buzzing around like bees in and out of the staff-room/labs with a look of accomplishment/importance on their faces, as if they've just conquered the world. You know, sometimes you feel as if you're a harmless, innocent person who is standing right in the midst of a second-class compartment of the "Virar-Fast" local train when it halts at Dadar Station, if you know what i'm talking about. There are people buzzing all around, all over the place, fighting, shoving, trying to be the first one to get inside/outside the mess, pacing around like animals. You're bang in the centre of it all, and you're motionless. You look around in amusement at the sight that unfolds around you. And you wonder what in the world has gone wrong!! Is there something wrong with you that you're not one of them? Or then again, is there something wrong with them? Its funny if you ask me. I've still not been able to decipher that.

As the day in college draws to an end, you don't know whether you should be happy or sad. Its a mixed feeling. Its boring at home. At the same time, college life ain't to rosy either. You're caught in a conundrum, and i hate to be in one every single day. I know that with age comes responsibility. I know that as you enter the penultimate semesters of your college, life becomes very very hectic and that the
social life goes bust. Being twenty-year-olds, career is an integral part of your consideration, and that you must do all it takes to form the foundations in the right manner, in a manner that you won't regret later on. You're scared of wasting too much time, and you're petrified at the thought of getting a low score in your acads that might have serious implications on your job-prospects et al. Its the same with everyone. But in my defence, i'd like to say that not sparing atleast 1 hour with your friends everyday isn't going to increase your chances of getting great marks, or getting a great placement. College life is sometimes about having fun too. Its about having the time of your lives, becuase you know that these days are never going to come back again. Of course your career is very very vital and important. But at the expense of what? College life? I'm not saying that people should just put aside the books and have fun all day like you're in the 11th grade or something. But atleast in the company of your friends, atleast in college, have a care-free attitude. Have fun. Have the time of your life. You might regret it later. I might sound like a fool. You might think i'm not at all career-oriented. But according to me, college life is every bit as important. Two/Three years down the line, i don't know about you guys, but i sure as hell will miss college like crazy. Its just my two-cents though.

This semester has made me actually realize how sucky engineering can be. I sincerely hope and pray that things lighten up a bit, and that we can be normal students, and not freaks who're occupied with work most of the time. I don't really know how others feel about this. Many might feel i'm being immature. But well, this is me, and this is what i really think!

Right then, thats going to be it today. I'll be back with more as soon as possible.

Until next time, goodbye!